JibJab Starring You AI

Starring You AI reimagines one of JibJab’s most beloved products for a new generation. Launched in Q2 2024, it lets users turn a single selfie into hilarious, high-quality AI images, starring themselves and loved ones in playful, share-worthy moments.

As the Product Designer, I led the end-to-end experience, focusing on a simple onboarding and a fast, intuitive personalization flow that felt unmistakably JibJab, helping modernize the brand while strengthening engagement and retention.

My Role

Product Design Lead

Timeline

Q2 2024

Team

Design, PM, Engineering

Platform

iOS (MVP), Web (later)

View the case study presentation →

The Business Challenge

JibJab’s Legacy : Starring You

Since 2003, Starring You has been at the heart of JibJab for decades, letting people upload a photo and instantly star themselves in funny, shareable videos and eCards. Over time, it became a holiday tradition, especially for busy parents, who wanted something quick, funny, and easy to send during special moments.

Time for a Refresh.

While the product was deeply loved, the world around it was changing fast, setting up the challenge we needed to solve. By 2023, We started to notice the product wasn’t performing the same way.

📉 Holiday and seasonal cards were seeing lower engagement.

💬 App reviews revealed a recurring theme: users felt they had already seen the content and were looking for something new.

🤖 New AI-powered apps were emerging, offering fresh, personalized content.

In today’s fast-changing digital world, how do we
refresh Starring You while holding onto the humor and magic that made JibJab special?

The Design Solution

Reimagine Starring You with AI.

Our approach was to build on what worked, not replace it. People loved the humor, the ease, and the classic JibJab look — like the big-head style that made our ecards so fun.

By adding AI, we could create fresh, personalized content while keeping the same lighthearted spirit people expected from JibJab.

With a clear direction, we focused on what the MVP needed to include.

MVP Scope & Design Constraints

Keeping It small.

We kicked off the project in early 2024 and aimed to launch right after Q2. That gave us just 3 months to go from design to ship.

Under a tight deadline, we focused our MVP on iOS — where most of our paying subscribers were. This gave us the best chance to gain traction quickly and validate the concept early.

We launched the MVP in June 2024, gathered insights from real users, and immediately began refining the experience. Over the next few months, we iterated rapidly before expanding to Web and Android.

Business First Design.

For the early user flow, we created a single, unified flow for both free and paid users — selecting a pack, uploading a photo, confirming, and viewing a single-image preview that acted as a soft gate before the experience branched. From there, free users reached the paywall, while subscribers regenerated to see their full results.

This wasn’t the most elegant UX. Subscribers went through the generating screen twice, which made the experience feel heavier and repetitive.

However, this was a deliberate, business-first decision. A shared flow made the experience faster and simpler to build under tight time and resource constraints. The preview before the paywall created a clear “moment of proof,” letting users see the AI working and helping build trust and drive conversion.

The flow met our initial business goals, but it also revealed opportunities to improve usability. After launch, we revisited the flow to make the experience lighter and smoother.

Early User Flow

Design Iterations

From Generic to Personalized Paywall.

In early explorations, we tested branching the flow right after photo confirmation so paying members could skip extra steps and go straight to their results. While this created a faster experience for subscribers, it sent non members to the paywall too early, before they could fully see their photo integrated into the experience. Without that moment of proof, the upsell felt less convincing.

This led to the personalized paywall. Instead of reusing the generic eCard upsell, we designed a new paywall specifically for Starring You AI that combined the AI generated preview and the paywall into a single step. Users could see their personalized result within the paywall itself, making the upgrade feel like a natural continuation of the experience.

This change also simplified the overall flow. Paying members moved directly from photo confirmation to results, while non members still saw value before deciding to upgrade. The result was a smoother, faster experience that felt more user friendly for everyone.

Adding Skin Tone Selection.

We introduced a skin tone selection step to make results feel more personal and inclusive, then combined it with the photo confirmation screen to keep the flow fast and simple. This helped users feel more accurately represented without adding extra steps.

Results & Impact

The Final Design.

By Q2 2024, we launched Starring You AI, a redesigned, AI powered experience available exclusively to JibJab’s paid members. This launch marked JibJab’s shift into the AI era, bringing personalization and creativity back to the core of the product. The impact was immediate. It strengthened engagement and retention among its core subscription audience, resulting in a more personal and modern experience that users were eager to engage with and share.

Personal Exploration

Post-JibJab Revisit

After launch, I revisited the Starring You AI experience with a fresh perspective.

While the original version worked well, it still reflected some visual weight from JibJab’s older UI patterns. In my redesign, I focused on simplifying the interface — reducing visual noise, improving hierarchy, and creating more breathing room across screens.

The result is a lighter, more intuitive experience that better supports the playful, guided nature of the AI product. This exercise reinforced how small visual refinements can meaningfully transform the overall feel of a product.

👉 Check out the Figma prototypes to see how these screens flow together!